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This post might be better in the "tech" forum- but I think everyone needs to know about this utility...

If you DO NOT want your windows computer to "upgrade" itself to Windows 10, this is a handy utility to install:

https://www.grc.com/never10.htm

Windows 10 has been almost "maliciously" forced on people by Microsoft and behaves more like a virus or malware than an operating system.

Knowing MS, they'll figure out a way around group policy edits, KB update uninstalls and those other third party workarounds. It's either that, or they'll just drop all security update support for Windows 7 to be malicious.

I was right. MS is getting even more malicious and devious in wanting to force everyone onto Windows 10.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3074020/ ... grade.html

It is possible to tame Windows 10.

Spybot released a program called Anti-Beacon to stop Windows 10 Spying. I personally prefer O&O ShutUp10 and both are adware free. The GUI in Windows Update MiniTool is bland. But gives the user full control over Windows updates. Also comes with no adware.

"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence."

Given that MS has denied that users are forced to upgrade, I'm going to have to lean towards incompetence (because upgrade-without-a-choice events are happening). It's still a fiasco.

tunnelcat wrote:I was right. MS is getting even more malicious and devious in wanting to force everyone onto Windows 10.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3074020/ ... grade.html

from your link TC

Microsoft changed its nagging pop-up prompt in an insidious way over the past week. For the past six months, the “Get Windows 10” pop-up asked permission to start an update, but lacked a “No thanks” option, so the only way to avoid it was to close the window by pressing the X in the upper-right hand corner. Now, the pop-up says “We will upgrade you at this time,” and pressing the X counts as consent.

Now I never got this message on my win 7 comp because, I think, I loaded this comp with win 7 after I loaded it up on my daughters computer. Now I get little messages that say I'm using a unauthorized version (yet I bought it) but no message to upgrade

Sirius wrote:"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence."

Given that MS has denied that users are forced to upgrade, I'm going to have to lean towards incompetence (because upgrade-without-a-choice events are happening). It's still a fiasco.

^^^^
This.

It's anecdotal, but my experience is that there's no "forced" upgrade. I've been just simply ignoring the popups (and closing them via the "x" when needed) on three different machines that I don't want to upgrade yet, and the upgrade process has never been started on any of them.

I'd be willing to bet that users are somehow not realizing they've clicked an option to start the upgrade.

[P.S. For the machines I want to keep at Win7/8 (because of Media Center), I'll probably go through the upgrade process sometime before the deadline so I can get the machines activated, and then back up the Win10 image and roll them back to 7/8 for now.]

Wouldn't be surprised if the confusingly-designed upgrade prompt is responsible for a lot of the issues, if it can in fact not happen automatically. (I haven't tried to test whether having recommended updates installed by default would install it without asking.)

A question. If you currently have Windows 7 Pro, why won't MS upgrade you automatically to Windows 10 Pro during the process, where you supposedly have user control of Windows Update, or don't they offer that version to us lowly home users during the free upgrade process?

Why would anyone use the home version of windows?

tunnelcat wrote:A question. If you currently have Windows 7 Pro, why won't MS upgrade you automatically to Windows 10 Pro during the process, where you supposedly have user control of Windows Update, or don't they offer that version to us lowly home users during the free upgrade process?

pro 7 to pro 10, home 7 to home 10 in a nut shell.

tunnelcat wrote:A question. If you currently have Windows 7 Pro, why won't MS upgrade you automatically to Windows 10 Pro during the process, where you supposedly have user control of Windows Update, or don't they offer that version to us lowly home users during the free upgrade process?

I don't think the Pro version is inherently exempt from the upgrade prompts, only if the machine is joined to a domain. But if it is joined to a domain, that's because they expect an IT admin to handle the upgrading themselves.

Although maybe I misunderstood. Win7 Pro should be upgraded to Win10 Pro as fliptw said; this might give some limited control of Windows Update, but as I understand it it's only the Enterprise edition (which is hard for individual users to acquire) that can opt out of updates entirely. I think Pro just lets you delay non-security updates, such as the so-called "TH2" release last winter, for another few months. At this stage in Windows 10's life-cycle I don't think it helps stability much to do that anyway.

But I feel like it's a futile effort. If you use one of those removal programs it seems to just reinstall everything you removed anyway. As far as never upgrading, just as one of the posters said they will eventually discontinue support for your OS. I used to emulate all the opinions of these posts but I just accepted it and let the damn thing install. Could Microsoft really do illegal or malicious stuff anyway? Could they really get away with that?

Not for long. I remember when the Win7 browser choice screen got broken by an update (apparently accidentally, but with how much money was involved in the court cases leading to that decision you'd think someone would be more careful?). Did not take long to get noticed and for the European Commission to complain. I don't remember whether another fine was issued but it absolutely could have been.

Whether what's happened with the Windows 10 upgrades is in any way illegal, I don't know. The EC is pretty strict about monopolistic practices but I don't know whether screwing up your upgrade prompts falls into that category.

I can tell you this much about MS. I lost my last computer to an XP update when I got this error :
NTLDR is missing. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart
It was a large XP update and all my computer would do was restart and show that text. I couldn't get into the BIOS. I tried recovery discs. After getting a new computer I tried everything I could find on the internet to get that computer to work again and nothing worked. I tried everything it said to do here:

http://www.proposedsolution.com/solutio ... restart-2/

and it WOULD NOT work!
This was right about the time windows vista came out. Those bastards killed my computer to force me to upgrade. The computer was 8 years old so I just took it as a prompt to do what I was about to do anyway.
I really wonder what plan they have in store for those who refuse to upgrade to windows 10.

Sirius wrote:

tunnelcat wrote:A question. If you currently have Windows 7 Pro, why won't MS upgrade you automatically to Windows 10 Pro during the process, where you supposedly have user control of Windows Update, or don't they offer that version to us lowly home users during the free upgrade process?

I don't think the Pro version is inherently exempt from the upgrade prompts, only if the machine is joined to a domain. But if it is joined to a domain, that's because they expect an IT admin to handle the upgrading themselves.

Although maybe I misunderstood. Win7 Pro should be upgraded to Win10 Pro as fliptw said; this might give some limited control of Windows Update, but as I understand it it's only the Enterprise edition (which is hard for individual users to acquire) that can opt out of updates entirely. I think Pro just lets you delay non-security updates, such as the so-called "TH2" release last winter, for another few months. At this stage in Windows 10's life-cycle I don't think it helps stability much to do that anyway.

Just lovely.

http://www.ghacks.net/2015/05/15/window ... mandatory/

Forced driver updates are the only ones that really worry me. There are times that I'd prefer to run an older video driver and I don't want MS even updating video drivers in the first place. One time I accidentally let one slip through, it really screwed up my system.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/take-back- ... indows-10/

reetus wrote:I really wonder what plan they have in store for those who refuse to upgrade to windows 10.

They can blow it out their Microholes.

I wonder how long it will be before Microsoft reactivates the telemetry features those like myself have disabled. But I took it one step further by deleting system files like dmwappushservice, and diagtrack. Less chance of those services being enabled again. Cortana was also deleted since I don't want to use it. Everything is perfectly stable.